2013 Predictions: Smarter TV, 3D, Web 3.0 Disruption

Some of the best business ideas are planted during a recession. With an economy on the mend, we'll see if 2013 is a year when some giant ideas emerge.

Here are some 2013 predictions from a journalist who's covered tech since the dawn of the PC era:

1. The smart TV breaks through.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (center) led the smiles at the May IPO. Investors have mostly frowned since then, but maybe not for long. AP View Enlarged Image

The idea of an interactive TV is 30 years old. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) are among the many to have rubbed this genie in a bottle, with little success. But 2013 will be a breakthrough year, and that could be bad news for pay-TV operators. Cord-cutting is growing as more people realize a Web-connected TV means not having to pay for 200 channels they don't want.

2. Apple loses more cool.

Last year when I predicted Apple would lose its cool factor, fan boys erupted. But a more than 25% drop in Apple shares the past 14 weeks, the growing dominance of Samsung and Android, a decline in iPhone loyalty — a Strategy Analytics study in November found that 88% of iPhone owners would likely get another iPhone, down from 93% the year before, with the research firm citing a perceived lack of innovation as the main reason for the decline — and the fact that the smartphone is becoming a saturated, low-price commodity business means the best Apple can do for now is add some wax to pretty up its shine. Then again, its $121 billion in cash and equivalents as of Sept. 29 is, of course, a mighty weapon.

3. Bricks tumble on retailers.

Just as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) killed Blockbuster, brick-and-mortar retail stores like Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) are in danger. Best Buy closed 50 stores in 2012. Best Buy, it seems, had become a showroom for Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), which gets the sales while Best Buy gets the window shoppers. For retailers, in-store sales this holiday season were ho-hum, in the low single digits, but online sales continue to record double-digit gains. Retailers must readjust, and fast.

4. Tablets lose some luster.

As the smartphone nears market saturation and giddiness over tablet computers settles down, consumers will reconsider the workhorse PC and laptop. The tablet is really a giant smartphone, a niche product for browsing and reading. Just as serious gamers have mothballed their consoles and gone back to amped-up PCs, tablet computers will follow a similar pattern. Perhaps some will become nice serving trays?

Some of the best business ideas are planted during a recession. With an economy on the mend, we'll see if 2013 is a year when some giant ideas emerge.

Here are some 2013 predictions from a journalist who's covered tech since the dawn of the PC era:

1. The smart TV breaks through.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (center) led the smiles at the May IPO. Investors have mostly frowned since then, but maybe not for long. AP View Enlarged Image

The idea of an interactive TV is 30 years old. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) are among the many to have rubbed this genie in a bottle, with little success. But 2013 will be a breakthrough year, and that could be bad news for pay-TV operators. Cord-cutting is growing as more people realize a Web-connected TV means not having to pay for 200 channels they don't want.

2. Apple loses more cool.

Last year when I predicted Apple would lose its cool factor, fan boys erupted. But a more than 25% drop in Apple shares the past 14 weeks, the growing dominance of Samsung and Android, a decline in iPhone loyalty — a Strategy Analytics study in November found that 88% of iPhone owners would likely get another iPhone, down from 93% the year before, with the research firm citing a perceived lack of innovation as the main reason for the decline — and the fact that the smartphone is becoming a saturated, low-price commodity business means the best Apple can do for now is add some wax to pretty up its shine. Then again, its $121 billion in cash and equivalents as of Sept. 29 is, of course, a mighty weapon.

3. Bricks tumble on retailers.

Just as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) killed Blockbuster, brick-and-mortar retail stores like Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) are in danger. Best Buy closed 50 stores in 2012. Best Buy, it seems, had become a showroom for Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), which gets the sales while Best Buy gets the window shoppers. For retailers, in-store sales this holiday season were ho-hum, in the low single digits, but online sales continue to record double-digit gains. Retailers must readjust, and fast.

4. Tablets lose some luster.

As the smartphone nears market saturation and giddiness over tablet computers settles down, consumers will reconsider the workhorse PC and laptop. The tablet is really a giant smartphone, a niche product for browsing and reading. Just as serious gamers have mothballed their consoles and gone back to amped-up PCs, tablet computers will follow a similar pattern. Perhaps some will become nice serving trays?

5. The new Space Race takes off.

Expect to see an initial public offering for rocket-ship builder SpaceX in 2013, another win for its founder, Elon Musk. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the brightest minds of this generation, is making progress with his rocket-ship company, Blue Origin. NASA has opened the doors for space entrepreneurs, with the first space tourists likely to hit the high horizons with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

6. There's gold in Big Data cloud.

Two of the big trends of 2012 were the emergence of Big Data and robust cloud computing platforms. Big Data applications are making sense of huge amounts of disparate data. And more of that data is being stored in the cloud, on massive storage server farms. Amazon, EMC (NYSE:EMC), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Microsoft and others will continue to push this juggernaut forward.

7. 3D printing's new dimension.

3D printing has been around more than 20 years, getting scant attention. But the field has found center stage thanks to a sharp drop in costs and a growing number of applications. 3D printing takes computer-designed objects and uses a light-emitting system to fuse liquid, powder or sheet materials into solid objects. Market leaders include 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) and Stratasys (NASDAQ:SSYS). Widely used in aerospace, medical and other industries, it's now entering the consumer realm with artists and educators.

8. Facebook, LinkedIn reign.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) took a beating in the stock market after its blockbuster IPO, but the social network soared past 1 billion global users. There will be saturation at some point, though it will never be a bad thing to have a billion members, especially since Facebook will find more ways to make money from its vast reach. Meanwhile, LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), the social network for business professionals, is getting stronger, with the field's best business model. Twitter will totter, a prediction from last year. But about the only thing Twitter is really good at is breaking news and celebrity malfunctions. It's time for Twitter to step it up.

9. Web 3.0 arrives.

The Internet's emergence in the 1990s marked Web 1.0. After the dot-com bust, Web 2.0 arrived, highlighted by interactive collaboration as seen in social media, and the explosion of apps, multimedia and more. The Web 3.0 term refers to advances sparked by a more "intelligent" and "semantic" Web, such as natural-language search, data mining, machine learning and much more. Expect to see a surge of entrepreneurs targeting Web 3.0, with mobile wireless as the hub, boosted by areas such as Big Data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

10. Social media gets depressing.

I call smartphones digital pacifiers, as they enable people to avoid reality. Sherry Turkle, a professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology writes and speaks on this topic. People are connecting more, but with less and less personal contact. This is resulting in what's informally described as social media depression. Social media are changing our lives, but maybe not for the better. Expect to hear more on this topic in 2013.

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